He said conservation would need support from land owners and managers of the 94 per cent of Australia which is outside formal conservation reserves.

The CSIRO proposes a system called a Conservation Management Network. This would assess how different types of land in a particular area - private, national parks, stock routes, roadsides, and state forests - could help in conservation of that area. Under this system, says the CSIRO, the government would no longer be the sole provider of conservation services - rather, this would become the responsibility of the whole community.

However, CSIRO's Carl Binning said Australia needed more effective strategies for working with landholders on conservation. He suggested that incentives could be offered to the private sector to encourage their involvement, such as private trusts to raise funds, tax incentives for donations, and tax exemption on management costs for running private reserves.

National Parks Association of NSW executive officer Noel Plumb said he agreed that there needed to be non-government land conservation initiatives, but said he vehemently opposed all future conservation efforts being put into non-government land.

"It's na´ve to think that humans can live in an idealistic multi-purpose biosphere reserve. We humans are exploiters by nature. There needs to be a core reserve system that is managed for nature above all else, otherwise there are no long term guarantees of protection," Mr Plumb said.